


and her bones sing of starlight

by Chill_with_Penguins



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst and Feels, I'm Bad At Tagging, I'm Sorry, Life is hard, Mom Appreciation, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John, Stiles Needs a Hug, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-21 06:08:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15551349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chill_with_Penguins/pseuds/Chill_with_Penguins
Summary: She hates it. Hates it with a passion she didn't know she could muster, hates more than she ever hated her abusive asswipe of an ex-husband, hates the danger and the lies and the scars and hates the creatures that slink in during the dead of night, leaving a trail of bodies and blood.Because--because--Because she's a nurse who has seen too many bodies shredded under vicious, feral, claws-and-teeth-and-desperation.Because she watched these kids grow up, watched them flourish bright and happy and strong. Because she watched that light die.Because even now, more than a year later, she still catches Stiles tracing the oni mark everywhere he goes; because the bags under his eyes are too deep and too constant and it's not fair, dammit.Because she is, first and foremost, a mother.~OR~The one where I was rewatching Teen Wolf for the billionth time, because what else would I do with my life, and I ended up feeling pretty bad for but also very impressed by Mama McCall & the various badass!moms. I pulled out my laptop, wrote a rant, and then posted it. Depending on how you feel, I'm sorry or you're welcome.





	and her bones sing of starlight

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, all! Thanks for meandering into my speck of the internet. I don't actually know what this is, just that I was going to to a mom-appreciation piece for teen wolf (because those ladies are BAMF), and then Claudia took over completely, so.... sorry, I guess? Anyways, hope you enjoy! Let me know if there's anything I should fix or write next in the comments!

There was a time when she was young. 

She knows this, knows it like she knows the human body, knows it like she knows the thousand ways it can break. But she doesn't  _ feel _ it. She just feels... old. 

Once upon a time, she had dark hair and dark eyes and she wandered the night fearlessly, trailing beauty and laughter and  _ life _ wherever she went. She remembers falling in love, remembers college nights spent without sleep and crumpled coffee cups littering the floors and the way her eyes seemed to be perpetually crinkled from shit-eating smiles, and-- _ god _ that feels like a long time ago. 

(She was the smartest one in her med school courses, on her way to being a doctor before the pregnancy and the marriage gone to shit and she doesn't regret it, not a bit, but sometimes she forgets that people don't see the way her mind moves so fast.)

(Honestly, that's probably for the best. She belongs where she is, as a nurse and part-time werewolf pack mom.)

(Here's a fact her fast mind picked up on, though:  _ pack mom _ and  _ nurse _ aren't so different. They're both jobs for people who would rather work long, messy hours than watch someone else suffer.)

It's not just her that's getting old. It's not even just the parents, though she's seen the way Chris grimaces when his knees pop and how the Sheriff's hair is more salt than pepper these days. She wishes it was just them, but it's not. 

It's Scott. And Stiles. And Lydia and Malia and Liam and Mason and Kira, all walking hunched over, always absorbed in the latest supernatural nightmare they never wake from. They look... defeated. Tired.  _ Old _ . 

(They don't even have the worst of it. Images of Jackson and Isaac, an ocean away from her protection, flicker across her eyelids, of Allison, smiling with her father one moment and being lowered into the ground the next and--)

(Stop. She can't think about these things. They eat her away from the inside.)

She hates it. Hates it with a passion she didn't know she could muster, hates more than she ever hated her abusive asswipe of an ex-husband, hates the danger and the lies and the scars and  _ hates _ the creatures that slink in during the dead of night, leaving a trail of bodies and blood. 

Because--because--

Because she's a nurse who has seen too many bodies shredded under vicious, feral, claws-and-teeth-and-desperation. 

Because she watched these kids grow up, watched them flourish bright and happy and strong. Because she watched that light die. 

Because even now, more than a year later, she still catches Stiles tracing the oni mark everywhere he goes; because the bags under his eyes are too deep and too constant and it's not  _ fair _ , dammit. 

Because she is, first and foremost, a mother. 

*

Being dead is a lot of things, but mostly it's boring. 

Claudia doesn't know where anyone else is. There was no white light, no moment of realization, no one to explain where she is or why she's here or what the fuck is going on. There was just her, mind snapping and clean white hospital sheets and the steady drone of the heart monitor and her son (she has a son?) sleeping beside her and then--

And then--

She's... Somewhere. She doesn't know where. She might be in the same hospital room, now that she thinks about it, but she isn't sure. All that she knows is this: the splitting headache from her brain eating away at itself is gone. Her memories are solid and clear and don't feel like they're covered in a fine layer of lint. And if she doesn't find her son--her Stiles, her precious, her tiny-one, her Mischief--someone is seriously going to get their ass kicked. 

But there's no one around for her to kick, or prod, or ask questions. So she stands. She moves. She tries to figure out how to get out of this tiny, nebulous place, and after she walks for a while she stumbles out onto the street. 

She isn't sure how long she's been walking (been gone) but it's long enough for the diner on the corner to turn into a laundromat, long enough for the faces of the people on the street to turn mostly unfamiliar. 

She almost tries to stop someone, to ask the date, but realizes before she even tries it that if no one noticed her  _ walking out of a wall _ , chances are they won't stop to chat. So instead she wanders, re-adjusting to the sunlight and trying to work out what the hell was going on. It might be some sort of spell--except she had left that all behind the instant she left her family back in Poland, left magic and fanged creatures (people) and the disappointment in their eyes when she was born without a spark. 

She comes to the unfortunate conclusion that she's dead. 

She thinks this should probably scare her, but it doesn't. It's kind of soothing, actually--she thinks that death is sure a hell of a lot nicer than the constant agony of the past few months (years?), of her memories shriveling inside her and everything falling to pieces. 

She still wants to see her son, so she walks. She walks the two miles to their house and when she gets there, she feels a pang when she looks at the yard-- _ her _ yard, the one she spent so much time weeding and caring for and trimming--in disarray. 

It's nothing compared to the inside of the house. 

It takes her a couple days to work out that she's already missed six months (six months that they've been living without her, six months of empty bottles and early mornings and late nights and unceasing  _ quiet _ that has invaded her home and--)

She learns pretty quickly that she can't do anything to communicate or affect the world around her, so she watches. She watches and fumes as John crawls into a bottle like his father had done so many years before. She watches with thunderstorm fury crackling in her bones as her little boy walks to the store and does taxes and laundry and learns how to take care of himself. She watches and howls as he starts closing himself off, clinging  _ tighthotfierce _ to the people he loves and not letting anyone else near. 

She screams, sometimes. It's an awful, primordial sound; the wail of a woman (a mother) who had pushed through pain and blood-slicked thighs and nights without sleep and **she had not done it only for this to happen** \--

They don't hear, of course. It's Stiles who eventually lures John out of his alcoholism, who gets them both on the medicine they need, who pulls shit together. 

She sees it all. She sees him being strong. 

But there are thousands of other moments when he's just being a boy, which is  _ good _ \--she loves him and she's proud of him and she's so, so glad he can still think about things like pretty girls, but at the same time, if she has to hear one more goddamn comment about the shade of Lydia Martin's hair, she will haunt him forever. (Well, she's already haunting him, but... whatever. That’s not the point.)

So, yeah. Being dead is frustrating, and confusing, and  _ boring _ . 

Then sophomore year hits. 

She'd always known about the things that go bump in the dark, of course. She'd grown up on not-so-mythical faery tales, on her family's scars and stories and on the powerful thrum of magic through their wards. But it wasn't supposed to follow her  _ here _ . 

(There weren't supposed to be any wolves in California. Not for the last 60 years.)

But there are some, evidently, because suddenly Scott is turning and there are Argents in town ( _ Argents _ , filthy and scheming and murderers and  _ god _ she wishes she could protect Stiles from what's coming) and brooding werewolves. They kill an Alpha--set him on fire and slit his throat and bury him under the charred remnants of a house, little more than a blackened husk, and they leave and Claudia hopes to god that that can be the end of it. 

It's not, of course. There are serial killers and more Argents and her son, her precious, loyal son, blackened and bleeding in a basement because fists won't stop coming. (She weeps and it is a bitter thing, the taste of salt in her mouth, because she cannot stop it cannot stop anything and she has never so hated death before.) There's a twisted boy turned serial killer and a kanima and then there's an Alpha Pack and a darach (evil, sour things; her family has hunted darachs for ages and that is a bloodshed she never blamed them for), and it  _ never ends _ , this stream of blood and terror and loss. 

Stiles downs twice as much Adderall as he should. He doesn't even have time to deal with his addiction (overdose?) before he's being shoved out of his own mind and Claudia hates it, hates this demon-fox that's locked her son away. 

She watches the sword go through Scott. She watches Allison fall. She watches Stiles breathe, and she knows, she knows he will never forgive himself for what has happened, but--but he is _ hers _ , precious and light-thing and she cannot look at him without seeing a little boy with eyes full of stardust and she may be dead but her bones have never stopped singing those old polish lullabies. 

He is guilty and miserable and out of control (he has magic, maybe?) but he is  _ alive _ and all she can feel is relief, overflowing and leaking through her ribcage. 

It doesn't stop, even after that. There are Dread Doctors and another possession (this one an ancient werewolf spirit, not nogitsune, but still what the hell is it with these kids) and then there's the Wild Hunt, enough to give the dead nightmares and she watches and claws her way to follow him. (She does not think about her husband, wandering the house with a version of her that never existed. She does not nearly bite through her tongue just thinking about the betrayal she feels, because how  _ dare _ he when their son is out there and facing such terrible monsters all alone and--she does not think about it. She does not.)

She watches, and worries, and waits. She doesn't exactly have many options, after all, so she accepts it with a familiar briskness and basks in the moments of boredom when they come. She watches them--Scott and Stiles and their pack, so fierce and tight and family--grow up, and it hurts, it  _ aches _ like she does not believe is fair. 

Still. 

She is dead. She has all the time in the world. And perhaps someday, a long, long time from now, she'll be able to see Stiles again--be able to hug him, to ruffle his hair, to tell him she loves him and she's proud of him and she will take on the whole damn universe if anyone ever threatens him again. 

Someday. 

For now, she watches. 

*

Claudia Stilinski and Melissa McCall are very different people. They are different for a multitude of reasons. One knows of the supernatural and runs away. One learns of it and runs forward. One grew up on pierogi and Polish songs and bare feet, while the other grew up with hot dogs and 80's punk-rock and boots that laced up. 

One is dead. One is very much alive. 

And yet... the similarities outweigh that. They are both fierce. They are both strong. They are both women who love with all their being, whose bones sing with starlight, who would rip apart time and space itself to keep their families safe. 

In short, they are both mothers. 

(Mother: one who will take on the world and rip out throats with blunt, human teeth if it means protecting her child.)

(Mother: one whose bones sing  _ mine mine mine look at this precious being I brought into the world look at him watch him grow. _ )

(Mother: one like a star, tiny and fragile and flickering until you get too close and burn yourself alive; one like a star that's born of nothing and one that's like a supernova explosion and one that's like the hollow, cold stars that leave floating, metallic debris in space)

(Mother: one who sacrifices. One who becomes.)

 


End file.
